2013 HPG - Debrief

2013 HPG Debrief

• link to initial google doc
• set to view only 1/15/13
• add further information directly onto the wiki page

HPG 2013 Debrief
Overall HPG
Volunteers
Check in process
Game Design
Safety
Queueing
Refs
Scoring
Game Play
Team Debrief
Surveys
Equipment/Supplies
Participants:
Proposals for next year’s planning following animation and lunch:

Overall HPG

Positives

• Understand rules better
• Yes -- for rookies if they’re working with HELPFUL veterans

Deltas:

• HPG -- what that means to sign up -- how to play if more people on a team
• less down time for volunteers and participants
• possibly team building activities to help with down time - building or puzzles or something to complete as a large group
• more signage in the front lobby - map of space (bathrooms), meeting spaces & times, what to expect from the day

Volunteers

**Volunteers need to know they can help anywhere they notice something not being done

Deltas:

• Add field re-set
• Other volunteers and teams -- challenges
• Not taking initiative
• Being bored
• Hard to get people to talk
• Hard to get people to meld
• Were they intimidated?
• Hard to get cross team communication
• Left without telling anybody
• Nothing for them to do
• Bigger name tags?
• Give people permission to help where needed

What Rick did with safety team: (some advantage being an adult instead of a peer):

• Looked for the volunteers
• Learned their names right away
• Knew what was important for the job before meeting the volunteers
• Talked about what was important -- normed them as a group
• Talk through expectations, how it might go, when they would all re-evaluate and change if necessary (so volunteers knew they would have some input)
• At some point all of them did something good and it was reinforced, praised, commented on

Check in process
Positives

• list of team numbers and names to check off quicker than writing them in
• input data directly into spreadsheet useful for creating alliances quickly
• volunteer positions filled in well
• mentors picked up for mentor team well
• designated meeting spots for the various groups of volunteers and teams posted on the whiteboards - helpful for teams and volunteers at check-in table

Deltas:

• not all teams understood they were to check in at team and hpg
• perhaps we can combine it with team check in and then send people over for questions?
• white boards with critical times listed right away
• instructions for teams on collaboration and hpg strategizing - perhaps need something printed?
• need to make it easier for other teams to help or don’t ask for help at this station
• make sure all working the check-in area knows what is going on - the flow of the day, etc to be able to answer the questions and answer
• extra veteran students on hand to walk the rookies and/or hpg rookies through the process (should be available at team check-in - ambassadors to rookies)

Game Design
Job description:
With other people, take the animation, field layout and rules and create a human player game with game elements, safety, rules and scoring in mind

Assistants’ job description
Need to know FRC, like strategy and games, understand the value of walking through a simulation to learn the game, work collaboratively with high intensity.

Positives:

• printed copies of the game rules right away was very helpful. Angie designated a laptop and printer in the lobby and gave instruction on how to print once the code was known.
• Megan (awesome job!)typing up the rules the designers were coming up with and being able to print them right away.
• Rules written out on whiteboard
• Had a new mentor join the merry band of designers - great to have new blood!
• location was great
  • access to scorers
  • access to consultation with safety
  • access to the field for questions
  • accessible by others with questions, comments, or concerns
  • visible so no ‘secrecy’

Liked having the extra adults and the students involved

• The area we met in was great -- lots of visibility and accessible to everything going on
• Getting the paper copies of the rules at the beginning was GREAT!

Deltas:

• highlighters for the key rules
• How to share the information with large group of people without appropriate visual aid?

Safety

Positives:

• great whistles provided by Yeti
• designated safety team to work with Lee and Tom with designated mentor to help students
• State Planning Committee gave great support and thought for safety.

Deltas:

• Do we need a way for the students to trade out so they are not stuck all day?

Queueing

Positives:

• Taping off large area to designate queuing space - gaffers tape is fantastic!
• blue and red tape to mark off correct zones very useful
• pinnies well organized
• head queuer plus 4 to queue
• queue set up 2 total

Deltas:

• number each ‘team’ clearly - the tape on pinnies ineffective - not all worn the same way, don’t fit, etc
• if using chairs again - number the chairs
• add chairs in queueing area for teams in queue
  • clears the line of sight
  • clearly defines if appropriate number of teams are ready and waiting
  • clearly signifies the purpose of the queueing area
• explain how and why of queueing
  • only number of people in queueing (just like drive team)
  • strategize before queueing with your team, use the time to strategize with alliance partners
  • schedule means nothing if not queueing up correctly
  • chaos reigns without proper queueing

Refs
Job description: Warning and noting down fouls as well as field reset, Head ref will probably be running around getting all the refs info together

Assistants’ job description: focus on one or two “robots” and look for fouls then help with field reset
Positives:

• head ref in on the game design from the start and then training others - brilliant
• great whistles provided by Yeti?
• There weren’t many fouls or safety violations

Deltas:

• 6 zebra shirts - mentor ref should be designated as well (only had 5 - were they large enough?)
• We never got to hear the cool whistles.
• The assistants were bored and did not do anything about it.
• I think that there should be expectations that if your job is moving slowly you can help with other jobs as long as it does not interfere with your original duties
• There should be an expectation that if you leave you should alert the person “in charge” or a person near you who will tell the person in charge

Scoring

Positives:

• early setup good for getting a handle on this
• open field allowed good line of site for scorers - no spectators in their way

Deltas:

• need score counting volunteers listed - kept having to replace them
• white boards (& markers & erasers) were not ready for the score counters - had to search them out
• Put a table over the cord at the beginning
• Have someone standing in the projector beam
• scoring team wasn’t really utilized to its fullest
  • final scores, what made up the scores
  • how did the scores reflect the strategies used during each game
  • announcers could share this data ongoing
  • overall data should be brought up during large debrief
  • data shared with others (if notes taken on strategies) on wiki, etc

Game Play
Positives:

• rolling chairs great for robots
  • differences in rolling ability similar to robots
  • allowed 2 people to be the robot
  • made it clear who the robots were
• processional walk worked for the most part - perhaps more demonstration or practice for some?
• Discussion on the tarp was good though a little tough for some of the adults to sit on the cement floor

Deltas:

• schedule mentors vs mentors early on in match play
  • students learn a great deal from seeing the mentors strategy
  • mentors are not afraid to ‘go for the gold’
  • fun and gets students fired up
• Hard to know what to do with other teams
• Can the crowd see?
• Team facilitator -- for each team?
• Set expectation about what they should be doing?
• Create a brochure about the HPG -- what it is, expectations, what it means to be a collaborative team, rules, etc. --
  • Rookies -- autonomous, terminology, etc.
  • Schedule -- so RQB could come watch and listen to the debrief
• Big sign for information
• Announce question table for Megan
• How to download and what the rules / encryption code is...
• Check in table -- hand outs
• Break up for each alliance -- 36 -- each team gets a set of rules, they have a team building activity or rules analysis activity,
  • How do you play the game?
  • How would you build it?
• Mentors -- need to have a game up front...
• At the Kick Off -- an overview of the day up front
• Debrief earlier -- even if not full
• First round all alliances and then an open game matches -- fill with whoever wants to -- stress collaborative part of it
• Music
• Having a runner for the announcers to get people ready
• Extra scoring people to collect information to give to the computing people
• What match was playing and queuing -- hard to figure out
  • A person to track that for queuer and for other teams coming up -- maybe a big white board -- who is on, who is queuing...?
  • cards saying ‘beginning Match x’ and ‘queueing match x’
• Trying to get the other teams talking to us and involved - maybe next year we should have a large team building challenge with all the HPG teams before the HPG
• Wasn’t much to do before the HPG with our teams

Team Debrief

Positives:

• Isaac running around with the mic worked as a bit of an icebreaker.
• Sitting together on the floor instead of bleachers felt friendlier than bleachers would have.
• Microphone much better than bullhorn.

Deltas:

• Have each alliance come up with something positive they learned or a strategy to employ.
• Perhaps have alliances introduce each other. (Depends on timing.)
• Stress the fact that sharing strategies and ideas will strengthen the entire FRC program in our state and beyond.
• Mentors need to encourage their students to speak up.
• The cement floor (even with tarp) was a bit hard and cold.
• Teams did not mix as well for the debrief this year. Didn’t feel the cross-team bonding like we had in 2012.

Surveys

• How do we get more filled out?
• Do we need to let teams know we really need them and they are available?
• Printed 150 copies and about 50 were completed. (75/150 in 2012)

Equipment/Supplies

Positives:

• Access to printer useful - did it get used at check-in table? if not, move to arena floor for game design.
• Went through a lot of red and blue gaffers tape to mark the floors - could have used more
• pool noodles ever so useful
• overpacking does pay off sometimes :)
• large number of whiteboards - some huge - available from Planning Committee - awesome addition!
• tables and chairs ready on the floor
• extension cords - most were used that were brought

Deltas:

• Consider tables for each ‘team’ or alliance.
  • Do teams need chairs too?
  • seems like a lot of furniture moving
• need whiteboard markers and erasers provided by a budget other than PyroTech

Participants:

Expected: 300 students actual: 250 students

Actual: 250 students + 34 mentors - so cool!

Proposals for next year’s planning following animation and lunch:

• team building with alliances
  • goals:
    • promote the cross-team collaboration and foster communication
    • set the stage for the hpg - not quite so much waiting about for the design team
• run 1 full round with each alliance playing one match
  • stress not leaving before the first full round complete
  • teams miss something important by not participating in the debrief
• debrief as a large group - perhaps have students sit with their alliances?
• run additional games with remaining teams
  • queue up as individual teams and fill the field for each match (sort of like the practice matches early in the season or queueing for an amusement park ride)
• More information sent out ahead with further explanation of what human player game is, the goals, and the reality of how many people get to be on the field.
• Put all the teams in their table groups and then have a mediator/gracious professionalism watcher to prevent non-gp behavior